Last week I sat down to have a chat with the founder & CEO of Newcon, Cephas Ndubueze, and Founding Community & Brand Manager, Tarlon Khoubyari, about their experiences with Launch House and On Deck. We touched on how these communities can be seen as founder universities, how they both got into the communities, and how they differ from each other. There is so much novelty in peer-to-peer networking.

Tech accelerators are a platform that enables innovation to happen within the founder space itself. It removes the layer of competitiveness and converts it into a community. These communities have left their mark on both Cephas and Tarlon.

Let’s dive in –

What is Launch House?

Tarlon: “Launch House is like a university for startups. It's a tech accelerator combined with residency, living, and co-working space. It's like a really valuable resource and toolkit for early-stage founders, or even later-stage founders, for them to have in their sort of back pocket. The way I see it, it's a decentralized University, where you have content, community, peer-to-peer accountability, but also you have a more global and broader access, because of the remote working style. Everyone is just genuinely there to support you”

Cephas: “As Tarlon said, quite nicely, Launch House is a kind of university, in a digital but also physical way. It’s a place where you grow as a person as well as, as a founder. Not only by learning the tools and getting access to resources, but also by engaging with others. So growing as a person and growing as a founder. Second, it's a place where you meet friends and like-minded people that are all going in the same direction, some faster, some stronger, but we all have similar goals. It’s also a place where you meet role models, like advisors, mentors, and professors, sort of like a university”

Cephas at NYC Launch House in may 🗽

Cephas at NYC Launch House in may 🗽

Tarlon with her female founder cohort in Launch House LA ☀️

Tarlon with her female founder cohort in Launch House LA ☀️

How did you become a part of Launch House?

Tarlon: “I actually found out about Launch House on TikTok and a few months later, my co-founder goes: “hey, I think we should do Launch House” and I was like, “you mean the company thing I saw on TikTok? You're crazy!”. And she was like “No, it's like a female founder cohort, we should do it. At first, I thought that there was no way this is real. Like how did something like this come to be?” But, Launch House really made me feel seen and understood, especially in a sense of having a community of female founders. I was kind of lonely before going because most of my friends were pursuing full-time jobs, and I was sort of alone with my entrepreneurial journey. Launch House really helped me in that way”

Cephas: “I saw a video with a Youtuber posting her experience in a house sort of like Launch House, in Tulum. And I thought “that's so sick”, living in Mexico with nice weather, working, hustling with 15 other founders in the house, I want that kind of experience. But the way I heard about Launch House was actually on a trip to an OnDeck retreat with some other founders. One of the female angels talked about Launch House and mentioned that she loved it. We were talking a bit about co-founders, and our OnDeck experience. Then she started talking about if she should also join Launch House. I didn’t know it at the time, but she was talking about how it would be an amazing opportunity, bringing founders together, living in Beverly Hills. So I check them out, an amazing website, and I'm like: “love it! I want to do the same”.

At that moment it wasn’t really the focus for Newcon, but afterwards, I kept seeing posts about Launch House on Twitter and LinkedIn, so it was continuously top of my mind. So when we started preparing for fundraising, you know some of our investors are in NYC, and of course, I wanted to visit them and meet them in person, and then Launch House did a cohort in NYC, so I applied, had a great interview, and I got in. However, when I got into the LA cohort, they said “hey we got this cohort in LA in this amazing villa”, and I went back to them and said, “no I want to go to NYC”. So I pushed them a little and somehow managed to get a spot in NYC. Got the call, and five days later I was on a flight to NYC. It was a little bit hectic, but I moved to NYC for 6 weeks. It was the perfect fit because Launch House was 4 weeks, and literally right after was NFT NYC, and just after that was the retreat from OnDeck. In short, it was an absolutely fantastic experience!